


History In The Making

by Aibohp



Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gen, Male-Female Friendship, Mike loves taking pictures, The Losers - Freeform, The kids don't leave Derry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-05
Updated: 2017-10-05
Packaged: 2019-01-09 08:15:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12272454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aibohp/pseuds/Aibohp
Summary: Mike always takes the best pictures.orMike takes pictures of the losers because he's a sap.





	History In The Making

**Author's Note:**

> I personally don't think that the movie had enough of Mike fucking Hanlon. 
> 
> He is very important in the book and while I liked the IT(2017) I was sad to see that Mike and his importance to the group got swept under the rug or handed off to Ben. I hope that in the second half they let us have more of him. That being said, this draws more from the book and the miniseries than the movie. 
> 
> If the kids didn't leave Derry and forget about each other I bet Mike would always be taking pictures of the losers. Especially if, like in the book, he knows that he isn't going to leave Derry, even all his friends do. He'd want to be able to remember them. And if it were modern-day he would probably take a bunch of pictures and videos with his phone, or make vlogs. 
> 
> Anyway, I hope y'all enjoy this!

Mike loved history. 

He found it fascinating, looking into the past to see who the actions of those who came before them shaped their futures. The only thing that made it better was doing it with his dad. Even after all the years they’d been doing it and all the places that he had been sent, his father would still find a new historic place in Derry to send him. Though the historical events had gotten even darker, something his mother didn’t approve of. 

Then again there was very little in Derry that had a bright or happy sort of history to it. 

Still, she would complain every time his father sent him off to go meditate on the sight of some unfortunate soul’s end and think about how things had changed. It unsettled her, how soaked with blood this town was. As soon as Mike came along something had urged her to leave, she would tell Mike when he got older. But his father had insisted that they were right where they needed to be. 

She never understood her husband’s fascination with history, even less Mike’s. Because there was something different about how her son studied the town. It was like he was looking for the answer to some very serious but unasked question. So when Mike turned 13 she introduced him to something that he came to love even more. 

“And here we have a wild Beverly in her natural environment! Look closely as she stuffs her face with poptarts!” 

“Did you just take a picture of me?” 

Mike’s mother gave him a box that had been neatly wrapped in a piece of wrapping paper that he remembered seeing wrapped around one of the presents at her own birthday months before. Inside was a polaroid camera that she’d picked up at a second hand store. Along with it came a heartfelt reminder that the present was history in the making. 

“Don’t worry Bev, you look great, I promise!” 

“You look like a fucking squirrel with your cheeks stuffed like that.” 

As much as Mike liked looking into the past, he had fallen in love with documenting the present. 

“Beep-Beep, Richie!” Beverly snapped, swallowing the mouthful of dry, frosted pastry that had muffled her words before. After dusting her hands together she held her hand out to Mike and crooked her finger. “Let me see it!” 

“I-I-I don’t know wh-why you’re so worried. M-M-Mike always takes gr-great pict-pictures,” Bill said, with a little smile. He was sprawled out by Mike’s knee, scratching away in one of the several notebooks that he carried around with him. 

“He probably couldn’t take a bad picture of you if he tried,” Ben agreed, making Beverly glance over her shoulder at him and smile. The poor boy’s face went red and he gave her a shy grin return. 

“It hasn’t even developed yet. Besides. It isn’t like anyone has to see it if you don’t like it,” MIke said, flapping the developing picture through the air. He had a policy with his pictures. If anyone didn’t him to keep the picture they could keep it. They just couldn’t get rid of it. 

There was nothing Mike could do if any of the Losers did decide to get rid of the embarrassing or meaningful pictures. But he knew very well that they didn’t. Beverly had a hollow book full of pictures in the bag she carried with her everywhere. Ben had them tucked into a drawer in the table beside his bed. Bill kept his in his notebooks. Eddie and Richie both stashed theirs in shoeboxes but kept them in different places in their rooms. Stan kept his in small photo album that he hid in his closet. The artist himself had them displayed all over his room, each one dated on the back with a little blurb about what they had been doing that day. 

“Besides, Bev looks nothing like a squirrel,” Eddie said from where he was seated between Bill and Richie. “She’s more like a rabbit or something.” 

“I don’t know if that’s better or worse,” Beverly pouted, snatching the picture from Mike when he finally offered it up. She’d been doodling in her sketch book and eating a poptart when the picture had been taken. After staring at it for a moment she narrowed her eyes and handed it back. “It’s not bad.” 

She had been drawing in her sketch book and eating a poptart when he took the picture. In it you could see her pressing her wrist against her mouth as she looked out of frame. Her cheeks were indeed puffed out with food but it wasn’t as bad as Richie had made it seem. Mike had managed to capture her profile in such a way that you could follow the Golden Spiral from the tip of her nose all the way around her head, to her ear. There were turquoise hearts hanging from her lobes and cheap little rhinestone earrings in the holes above that. Up on the rim of her ear she had a small stud shaped like a rose. And the sunlight came down through the tree limbs above to light her hair up in dark red flames as it curled around her ears. The color brought out the freckles dusted over her face. 

“Yeah. I guess you’re right. But I’d say she’s more of a fox,” Richie said, bouncing his brows in an exaggerated manner.

Across the circle, Beverly flipped him the bird and rolled her eyes. “Better than a beaver.” 

“Ooh! She got you there, Trashmouth,” Eddie said with a grin and Bill was snickering into his hand while Richie stuck his tongue out at Beverly. Even at eighteen they were still such children sometimes. 

“I will have you know I’m growing into my teeth,” Richie said, making everyone light up with another round of laughter. 

They had grown out of the Barrens as they got older. Really, they’d not been back since that Summer when they were about 11 or 12. There had been no reason to hide there anymore with Belch and Criss dead and Henry toted off to the sanitarium. Then again, it had been their favorite place in the world when they were children and there was no reason to abandon it for Basey Park, either. Yet they had. It was rare for them to talk about that Summer. It was almost like they’d forgotten about it. Almost. 

They had to actively think about what had happened to remember. Then again, who would have wanted to remember all that terror and death? But if asked, they would say that it was like the Barrens were done with them more than them being done with the Barrens. 

Whatever had pulled them there in their youth had let them go. 

“D-D-Don’t worry, Richie.. We st-still love you. B-Beaver t-teeth and a-a-all,” Bill snickered, to which Eddie snorted, giving their friend a confused look. 

“But do we really,” Eddie asked, only to be swatted across the back of his head by Richie. 

“Of course you do!! Where would you guys be without me,” Richie asked, wrapping his arm around Eddie’s shoulders while the slighter boy rubbed at the back of his head. 

“If I didn’t to deal with you I’d be ecstatic. My skin would clear up, my crops would be watered, my grades would go up. Life would be good,” Eddie, making everyone in the circle snicker. Bill and Bev were especially affected, both redheads shuddering with chuckles. 

“You little shit,” Richie said with a smirk, tightening his hold around Eddie’s neck and scrubbing his knuckles into the boy’s head. 

Eddie let out a squawking noise and reached around Richie to pinch his side. Then when their resident funnyman let him go to slap at the assaulting hand, Eddie shoved himself into Richie’s side and they both toppled over onto the grass. Not one to be left out, Bev rose up on her knees and collapsed on top of both boys. They turned into a thrashing ball of limbs and laughter as Beverly started to help Eddie find all of Richie’s ticklish spots. That is until he thrashed his way out of their grip and turned on Bev. Eddie ended up betraying her and helping Richie tickle along her sides and under her arms. Then, when the three of them broke apart, panting and red faced, Mike snapped another picture. 

He didn’t bother to own up to that one since no one asked if he’d taken another one. Mostly because he was certain that at least one of them would have wanted to keep the picture for themselves. All three had blotchy, red faces. Eddie’s hair was a mess and Bev had eyeliner running in streaks from the corners of her eyes, into her hair from where she’d teared up while laughing. 

Bill gave him a knowing look but said nothing as Mike slipped the pictures into his hoodie pocket. It wasn’t the best place to keep them but it would do until he got home. In his room, he had kitestring strung along his walls and most of his pictures were displayed on them. Starting from the right of his bedroom door and looping all the way around to the left, they were hung with clothespins, in chronological order. Occasionally he’d would have to shuffle them around make room for new pictures. The older ones would get moved to photo albums or stuffed into the edges of the mirror hanging on his closet door. 

Sometimes, especially now that they had reached what society deemed to be ‘adulthood, the future seemed far too close for Mike’s comfort. He was under no illusions that one day the seven of them may be forced apart by life, love, or death. Whichever came first. Someday down the line they may be nothing but memories in the others minds. But with every picture Mike took, there was one last thing that he would forget. He hoped that he would never forget the friends he’d made when he was 11, never forget how much they loved each other. Hopefully one day, when they had all moved away from Derry and were living their own lives. Bev would pick up her hollow book or Bill would be moving his old journals. Eddie and Richie would be cleaning out their closets, or Ben and Stan would be going through their boxes and old furniture that they’d carted around for years. Then they’d find their old photos and remember the years they’d spent together.

**Author's Note:**

> I know I didn't mention Stan or Ben as much as the others but i didn't really have anything for them to do?? Or I couldn't think of anything anyway.


End file.
